Body vs. machine

Gender:

Male

Prior to beginning my life of masturbation, I had discovered my father's stash of "dirty" magazines. This was probably around age 10. I knew that I enjoyed looking at the pictures of nude women (more for intrigue than anything else at that point), but at the time, I didn't know what masturbation was, nor did I ever think about touching myself. My mother caught me looking at the magazines once and told me not to look at them. However, she didn't mention anything about sex or masturbation, not then and not ever.

Then when I was around 11, I received sex-education lectures at school. Unfortunately, I learned "the basics" but not much else, which left me with much curiosity about sex. Masturbation was not covered. When I reached age 12, I discovered that there was a local library branch near my house that had books about sex. I soon got a library card and checked out a book written for teenagers about sex. If it weren't for this local library branch, I'd have never checked out this book, as the only other reachable library for me was at my school. In this book, there were statistics showing that a high percentage of teens "masturbated." When I first started reading this, I wasn't quite sure what masturbation was, so I read on.

Okay, so masturbation is the self-manipulation of the sexual organs. Heck, since this book seemed to indicate that most teens were doing it, maybe it was something I wanted to try! So later that day, I tried masturbating for the first time. How did I do it? I'm not sure how I came up with the idea, but I put a generous amount hand lotion in my right hand, made a fist around my penis, and slowly began to pump up and down. This started to feel really nice, and after increasing my tempo a little, I had my first orgasm. Ahhh, very pleasing, I thought. Despite having quite a little mess to deal with, I knew that I wanted to make that little trick a habit!

And that is just what I did. I began to masturbate regularly after school. On some days, I would get home from school about an hour before anyone else would come home, and I would use that time to masturbate in relative privacy. It also allowed me time to gather up some of my father's magazines to look at while masturbating. I started masturbating without the hand lotion because I worried that it would take too long to clean up if someone came home early.

I also started the practice of masturbating in the bathroom, which served several purposes. First, as weird as this sounds, I would sit on the toilet seat and spread my butt-cheeks on the seat as wide as possible. For some reason, stretching or tightening the muscles of my sphincter made masturbation feel better, especially at the point of orgasm. This is just about as far as I ever went with any kind of anal manipulation. Second, masturbating on the toilet seat made it very easy to clean up. When I ejaculated, I simply caught the semen with a couple of tissues (held in my free hand) and then flushed it all down. I would stop and start masturbating at various times as I read various magazines, cleaning the pre-ejaculate during the times I'd stop. Third, if my parents ever came home, I would flush the toilet (orgasm or not) and just pretend I was going to the bathroom. Since my parents had never talked about masturbation and I never heard about it in school, I didn't know if my parents were okay with it. I didn't want my parents to suspect that I was masturbating, and I feared getting caught doing it.

During my teenage years, I probably masturbated on average 7 times per week. I didn't do it every day, but on some days I had more than one orgasm. My typical pattern was to read my father's magazines for at least a half hour, occasionally stroking myself, before finally letting myself have an orgasm. My orgasm strength depended on the usual factors — how long it had been since my last, how long I teased myself prior to orgasm, and how turned on I had gotten from looking at the magazines. Actually, what really turned me on (and still does) was the erotic fiction in these magazines. My masturbation sessions typically consisted of me reading the stories and picturing myself in some of those scenarios. Once I got a good story in my head, I'd flip to photos of women and further imagine seeing her in my fantasy. That's when I'd let myself finally have my orgasm.

As my experience with masturbation grew, I found that I could have only one orgasm sitting down (or rather with my legs bent) in a short period of time. Somehow I learned that I could have more orgasms much sooner if I flexed my muscles to keep my legs as straight as possible. So I would often have my second or third orgasms standing up in the bathroom, always ejaculating in the sink. I had to pump my penis pretty furiously to get the second or third orgasms, and sometimes this would leave me with a sore penis. To this day, the straight-leg technique works great for a fast orgasm.

In my teens, I didn't deviate much from my normal bathroom masturbation practices. I sometimes masturbated in the shower, but I didn't enjoy it as much, because I always felt rushed. When I did masturbate in the shower, I did it one of two ways: either standing up or squatting. For the squat, I would get into a baseball-catcher position, with my knees as wide apart as possible. I like squatting because of the way it tensed up my butt and leg muscles — and the fact that visually it seemed to expose myself and made my penis really stick out.

One experiment I did try involved my parents' back massager. Of course, instead of my back, I used it to masturbate. This thing was buried so far in the closet, I doubt that my parents ever used it, but who knows. The only way I ever tried it, however, was to simply place the vibrator directly on the head of my penis. That was truly a weird sensation, as this thing was pretty strong. In the beginning when I would touch my penis with it, the sensation was so strong that it felt pretty numb. But then almost out of nowhere, warm tingles would develop that would quickly turn into a huge orgasm. The bad part was that the orgasmic spasms were virtually too strong to be really pleasurable. It was like my body vs. the machine, and the machine was winning. Every time I used the vibrator, my body was completely emptied of every last drop of semen, and I could never go for a second orgasm without a long rest period.

When I started to develop a little more during puberty, I started to notice that my penis had a moderate bend to the left. I became worried that my right-hand masturbation (perhaps pulling to the left a little) was causing the bend in my penis. As a result, I switched to masturbating with my left hand as a way to hopefully correct this. It sounds absurd, I know, but I was really worried about it. My penis bend never corrected itself, but to this day, I still masturbate with my left hand.

I don't make very much noise when I masturbate. At most, I let out one or two grunts or gasps during orgasm. I think this stemmed from my fear of getting caught. Also, though, is the fact that I get turned off by adult movies where the actors go overboard on the noises, because it seems so fake to me. I think that is why I generally like amateur adult movies better, because everything is much more genuine. Most times, any grunts or groans an amateur actress makes are likely involuntary noises and are genuine indicators of the pleasure she is feeling. That is highly erotic to me.

When I went away to college, I found myself in the dorms with a roommate, which made it difficult to masturbate. Our living quarters consisted of one small room with bunk beds. We had one community bathroom for the entire floor, but we did have private showers. I never tried to sneak in a session because I didn't want to get caught. I never discussed masturbation with my roommate because I was afraid of being ridiculed. Nobody ever talked seriously about masturbation. That meant that when I first got to school, I didn't masturbate for about 4 months, my longest break ever. Boy, was that difficult. You don't realize how much masturbation is a part of your life until you can't enjoy it.

After the first semester, things got better. I switched roommates, and my new roommate would sometimes but not always commute home on the weekends. This meant I had the place to myself, and I sure took advantage of it. It would not be uncommon for me to have 5 or 6 orgasms in a weekend. Weekends became very relaxing. I would go out and rent adult videos as a masturbation aid. I think for the duration of college, I rented over 100 videos! These were pre-Internet days, so I had to leave the place to get visual stimulation. I'm not sure what I would have done if it weren't for my roommate's trips home. The only minor problem I did have was disposing of my semen. I didn't want to keep a masturbation towel around in case anybody found it. So I would ejaculate into paper towels I took from the bathroom. Then, when nobody was around, I would flush the used paper towels down the toilet.

After college, I finally got my own apartment. That meant I no longer had any fear of getting walked in upon while masturbating. (At college, my roommate always could have come home early!) This really let me slow down and enjoy masturbation much more. Believe it or not, I "rediscovered" hand lotion. After not using lotion to masturbate with for years, due to the extra mess and cleanup time, I found that using hand lotion is very pleasurable. This may be obvious to most, but I discovered a major difference with lotion (or any other kind of lubricant). It all has to do with the incredible sensitivity of the penis head. When I would masturbate "dry," I would essentially "bang" my foreskin back and forth into the outer ring of the penis head. This meant that no part of my hand (or anything else) would ever touch 95% of the head of my penis, which is the most sensitive part. So while I could eventually get to a good orgasm by masturbating "dry," the actual act of stroking my dry penis on the journey to orgasm was not terribly pleasing in and of itself. Essentially, I would be pounding away on my penis, often times yawning, waiting for the real pleasure to come with Mr. Orgasm. Things became much different, because I was free to linger on the penis head itself. After 12 years of masturbating, I was amazed at how good it felt to lube up my penis, pull back my foreskin tight, and just massage my penis head with my fingertips and palm! No pumping, just simple caressing and massaging of the head. Wow! That technique felt good not only at orgasm, but all the way up to it. I just wish I had been in a situation where I could have used a lube regularly much earlier in my life.

After I had gained more freedom and time for my masturbation with my apartment, I also devised some "masturbation games" to spice things up. They are little contests that you play with yourself that make masturbating a little more interesting. They are a lot of fun when you have the time for them. It could be that some of these techniques have names and are listed somewhere on this site. All I know is that I enjoy and recommend trying some of these games.

One game was to see how many times I could reach orgasm in any given period (usually one day, but it could be a week, a month, whatever). I picked an uninterrupted day or weekend alone and spent it periodically pleasing myself. I challenged myself to set new records in terms of the number of hours caressing myself, or the number of orgasms I had. I think my record for this one is 8 orgasms in a 24-hour period. It becomes really difficult to have repeated orgasms like this, but it is fun to try to set new records. After a few orgasms, I sometimes did not feel like masturbating anymore, but I kept going anyway. Sometimes the orgasms that are the hardest to get to are the most amazing when they finally arrive. It's like pulling one from down deep. Obviously, be forewarned that you can get really sore with this game. If I wanted to try to set a new record, my best shot would be if I didn't masturbate for about a week before I did this.

A variation of the first game was that I forced myself masturbate to orgasm twice a day for an extended period, like two weeks in a row or a month. If twice a day is normal for you, then set a goal that you might have a little trouble in meeting, and then see if you can make it. Force yourself to do it, if you have to. When I would do this game and masturbate twice each day for two weeks in a row, there were some days when I did not at all feel like masturbating, and it was sometimes difficult to reach orgasm. But when I did get over the top, it was well worth it and felt a little different from normal.

Here is one last game which is my all-time favorite. I think it's known as "Stop & Go" on JackinWorld. I would see how long I could stand masturbating while intentionally not letting myself reach orgasm. When I was on the verge of orgasm, I would have to either briefly stop or slow down. Obviously, the more time I spend right on that edge, the better this is. This is also best done with lubricant. I like to lube up, pull back my foreskin, and gently rub and caress the head of my penis. I especially like to touch the tips of my fingertips and thumb together and then slide the head of my penis up through those fingertips — sort of like a mouth, I guess. Contrary to the fist-pounding days of my youth, I've found that a slow and light touch gradually builds a ton of sexual tension.

I do the "Stop & Go" technique sometimes for as long as two hours. If ever there was a way to take your mind off things for a while, this is it. After doing this for a while, my mind is totally focused on the pleasurable sensations, and my desire for a release is enormous. I forget about all of my worldly worries for a while! When I finally do let myself have an orgasm, it's quite powerful. In fact, I have had my strongest orgasms from masturbation this way. This is a great technique to use with a long erotic novel.

Now that I am happily married, I don't masturbate as much as I once did. That is not to say that I don't masturbate at all. I still enjoy orgasms from masturbation several times per week. My wife knows that I masturbate, and she is okay with it. We do masturbate together occasionally, but she realizes that sometimes I just need time alone with myself.

At no point did I ever have any guilt from masturbation. As absolutely silly as this sounds, a big part of this came early in my life from reading an advice column in one of my father's "dirty" magazines. There were several people who had written questions about masturbation, asking if it was okay to do and if it's possible to masturbate too much. The answers were always that masturbation is perfectly normal and healthy and that masturbation had to really start to interfere with the rest of your life in order to approach the point of masturbating "too much." That was good encouragement and advice, and I continued to have orgasm after orgasm without any guilt or shame.

As I mentioned briefly above, I never shared masturbation with anyone until much later in my life. I never had the courage for that, and I never even considered it. I was way too concerned about the social backlash. None of my friends ever talked about it, even though we probably all did it. And I never talked about anything remotely connected to masturbation with my parents. But looking back, I wish things had been different. First, I do wish that I had a friend with whom I could have discussed masturbation. In fact, with the right person, I might have even considered masturbating with that person. Now, I am not homosexual (and not opposed to homosexuality either), but I think that it's possible for a person to masturbate with a friend (same or opposite sex) and not develop a sexual relationship with that friend. Masturbation is part of almost everybody's lives, and I don't think there is anything wrong in talking about it or doing it together with your close friends. People need close friends with whom to share and talk about things, and masturbation is just another one of those things.

The second thing I'd change was that I wish my parents had talked to me about masturbation. Why? And what did I want them to say to me? Am I crazy? Well, as embarrassing as it may be at first, in the grand scheme of things it would have been very nice if my parents had told me that (1) they approved of my masturbation and thought it was perfectly normal, and (2) that while masturbation was a private activity, there was no reason to hide my masturbation from them or be embarrassed about it. What I mean by the second (and more important) part is that I would no longer have to fear things like staying in the bathroom "too long," or fear if my mother found my bottle of lubricant (the one I wish that I'd had), or the fear of putting soiled masturbation towels in the laundry. Getting "caught" was my #1 fear, and if I hadn't read the advice column about masturbation being normal, who knows — but I might have developed a guilty conscience as well. The fears and possibility of guilt would have been eliminated if my parents had talked about these things with me at an early age. I think the talk has to take place around age 10, an age when you are not yet a "know-it-all" or "too cool" for your parents. If they had done that, I'm sure I would have enjoyed masturbation much more in my teenage years. In addition, if somehow my parents had accidentally walked in on me masturbating, it wouldn't have been a big deal. And one other thing: Growing up, during family vacations, it would have been nice to be able to tell my parents that I needed some private time to masturbate. Those trips can be brutal, and it's not always because your relatives drive you crazy! The bottom line is that I wished I'd had a family environment where masturbation was an acknowledged activity, was considered perfectly normal, and could be discussed when necessary without embarrassment.

If everyone had both friends to discuss masturbation with and parents who acknowledge and support masturbation, I think the world would be a much better place. Why? Well, the answer gets me to my last point, which is how masturbation affected my sex life during my single life, primarily in my teenage years. This last point is probably the biggest positive impact that masturbation had on my life.

Simply put, masturbation gave me an alternative to partner sex. This was very important to me given the risks of AIDS and teenage pregnancy, either of which likely would have virtually ruined my life plans. I didn't mention above the few girlfriends that I had sprinkled throughout my life, because they had nothing to do with masturbation. (I guess we could have masturbated together, but we never did.) But masturbation gave me a sexual outlet that allowed me to satisfy myself without having to go out and find a girl to have sex with, just to satisfy the need.

Let's face the facts. As embarrassing as it may be to talk about, orgasms feel great, and humans (especially teenagers) are loaded with hormones that drive us all to crave orgasms. If you are a person who believes that masturbation is wrong, then you are either one really horny (and irritable) person, or you are regularly going to go out and finding one or more partners to have sex with. That is not necessarily bad, but again, given the problems of AIDS and teenage (or otherwise unplanned) pregnancies, you may be taking more risks than you need to.

I knew some guys in college who would talk about how they were really horny and needed to go out and find "any old girl" to satisfy themselves. Although there is perhaps a time and a place for the one-night stand, masturbation was my way of relieving the tension and getting pleasure. I was in control of my hormones, and I had a great way to blow off some steam. Masturbation also allowed me to take out the mystery of sex — at least as far as the physical pleasure went — prior to me ever having partner sex. I knew what an orgasm felt like, and I could have one basically whenever I wanted. This meant I was much less likely to be talked into having sex before I was ready, or me talking someone else into it who wasn't ready, either. So the biggest impact masturbation had on my life was to educate me, keep me out of trouble (so to speak), and put me in control of my sex drive.

It's a shame that there is such a masturbation-phobia in the United States today. While many kids do masturbate, I think many regard it as a "guilty pleasure" and/or consider it something that "losers" do because they can't get a date. Masturbation should not be viewed that way. In fact, it should probably be most kids' first source and outlet for sexual pleasure. Web sites like JackinWorld help to dispel the guilt and phobia surrounding masturbation, and that's why I wrote my masturbation biography. Joycelyn Elders was exactly right in saying that masturbation should be taught in the schools, and her firing was a blow to level-headed thinking on sex education.

When I have children, I plan to empower them with the knowledge of masturbation in the hopes that it will benefit them as it has benefited me in my life. It used to be that parents feared that their kids were masturbating. I hope to see the day when parents fear that their kids are *not* masturbating.

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